{"id":1639,"date":"2012-03-05T17:12:21","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T21:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1639"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:43:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:43:15","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-july-14-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-july-14-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: July 14, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"McNair-to-Hall-07-14-1980\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-07-14-1980\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

July 14, 1980<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

Thank you for your bracing letter. I have mailed the book to
\nU. Illinois and Carnegie-Mellon–am about<\/span> to mail it to U. Georgia. I have
\nalso sent several letters about the book to the \u201cbig houses\u201d, as you advised.
\nNeedless to say, I am thankful that my publishing the book matters to you,
\nwhatever the consequences might be, and I take hope in your assurance that
\nI will<\/span> one day publish it. I will try to remember your warning about the
\nirony underlying all apparent successes for the writer.<\/p>\n

You mentioned that you are in a period of uncertainty about your own
\nwork. Perhaps this is a good time to tell you the story of a poem you wrote
\nnot long ago which hit me like the dropped safe of the old cartoon, and
\nwhich helped me to write a poem–and later other poems–like it, even though
\ndifferent from it.<\/p>\n

I am speaking of your \u201cWaterfowl\u201d poem, which appeared on the back page
\nof APR 4 or 5 years ago. I believed then, and still believe, that no one
\nhas written a funnier poem than that one. I loved its reliance on sources
\nin the popular culture. I loved how reckless and how wonderfully controlled
\nit was in its form and in its humor. And I was struck by its wonderful mixture
\nof humor and desperate seriousness. I read the poem shortly before I wrote
\n\u201cThe Thugs of Old Comics\u201d. It was your poem and certain poems by Edward
\nField that I thought of as I was doing \u201cThe Thugs\u201d. Without your poem, I may
\nnever have been able to complete my poem.<\/p>\n

I am sure your poem also helped open the way to other humorous \u201cpop-
\ncultural\u201d pieces which I have worked on since \u201cThe Thugs\u201d, and continue to
\nwork on. While it is true that I wrote \u201cThe Little Louey Comic\u201d and \u201cThe
\nCharacters of Forgotten Dirty Jokes\u201d before writing \u201cThe Thugs\u201d, I did not
\nsee the full possibilities of \u201cpop\u201d poems until your poem, Field\u2019s poems
\nand the writing of \u201cThe Thugs\u201d. Do you remember telling me once (and how
\nthrilled I was!) that \u201cThe Thugs\u201d was the \u201cperfect poem\u201d, the poem \u201cThe
\nLittle Louey Comic\u201d wanted to become? What you did not know was that your
\npoem assisted in the completion of \u201cThe Thugs\u201d, helping me to go beyond
\n\u201cLouey\u201d, and later to write poems like \u201cHair on Television\u201d and one I am
\ndoing now on \u201cbefore\/after\u201d ads.<\/p>\n

Of course, your poems about the region of [inserted<\/em>: northern] New England are also very
\nimportant to me as a writer. They show me that solid work can still be done
\nabout the place which inspired the poems of Dickinson, Robinson and Frost,
\nand they fill me with possibilities for my own regional writing. But I wanted
\nto write you here about a poem which actually influenced my writing, and
\nbesides, I have written already how much I think of Kicking the Leaves<\/span>,
\nwhatever doubts you may have about your recent writing.<\/p>\n

I hope I managed to lift your spirits a bit with this small
\ntestimonial. Even if I haven\u2019t, I thank you very much for that poem and for
\nwriting it at the time I needed it!<\/p>\n

Love,<\/p>\n

Wes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Read To a Waterfowl<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read T<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>he Thugs of Old Comics<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Before People<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Click image to view] July 14, 1980 Dear Don, Thank you for your bracing letter. I have mailed the book to U. Illinois and Carnegie-Mellon–am about to mail it to U. Georgia. I have also sent several letters about the book to the \u201cbig houses\u201d, as you advised. Needless to say, I am thankful that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35324,35504,42973,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1639"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11297,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions\/11297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}